


no attempts at decency

by hypercrite



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: (not telling you which ones), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Breathplay, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Future Fic, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Semi-Public Sex, Unresolved Emotional Tension, way more heavyhanded critique of the idol industry than there should rightfully be in a pwp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:41:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22153975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypercrite/pseuds/hypercrite
Summary: And Mark doesn't really need his help— but he's asking for it.And Renjun could help, but Mark doesn't really need his help. And Renjun doesn't need Mark to feel useful.He doesn't need the way that Mark never quite managed to shift from leader to friend, doesn't need anything that could be mistaken for pity, doesn't need something else to twist himself into knots over; to carefully examine the weave and stitch of each openhanded gesture to see what he'll have to give up in return.This, though.This, Renjun needs.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Mark Lee
Comments: 9
Kudos: 61
Collections: Haggly Holidays!





	no attempts at decency

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyrophane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/gifts).



> please heed the tags. the sex in this falls much closer to under-negotiated kink rather than dubious consent but i'm tagging it just to be sure. more detailed warnings will be included in the end notes.
> 
> unbetaed so feel free to point out any typos that i missed
> 
> set at hypothetical smtown nyc 2022. sorry for being possibly too optimistic about nct's future. title from "the execution of all things" by rilo kiley. this is not a bleak boygroup bingo fic (officially) but shoutout to bbb for permanently altering how i approach idolverse. 
> 
> to my recipient: i hope you enjoyed this!

The sound from the rented studio's shitty speakers barely stretches across the room to Renjun, but he doesn't really need it at this point. Just the reverberations under the balls of his feet, a voice (sounding an awful lot like Sicheng) in his head counting steady eight beat measures.

Pivot, deep breath so he has the air for his line. Lift his leg until he feels the twinge that means it looks like the video the choreographer sent him months ago. 

His eyes aren't closed, though there's no point looking at the mirror when he spends most of the routine behind others, when his arm nearly collides with Jisung. Jisung, so much taller than all of them now, who shoots him a look before ducking under it neatly, not sparing a misstep as he changes formations.

Stupid. 

Renjun knows better than wallowing at this point. Because the back of the stage is still visible to the audience, because he's hardly the member with the short stick in terms of line time, because a halfassed performance has consequences, because group performances are now his best opportunity to snatch a ticket to something bigger now.

He lines up with Donghyuck, shoulders even as they mirror each other's movements. Donghyuck has a smirk that meant he caught the slip with Jisung. _Distracted?_ he mouths, and Renjun thins his lips into a furious line before shoving him forward, hand low enough on his back that the training staff won't catch it.

Donghyuck might have an esteemed reputation for unprofessionalism, but he knows the staff here— Renjun doesn't. Nor does he plan on wasting one of the only chances he'll have to perform this year.

The music peters out and someone pauses it before the next one can start. Donghyuck is back to his side instantly, shit-eating grin and sharp fingers digging into Renjun's ribs.

"Renjun-ah," Donghyuck draws his name out into the whine he picked up permanently after his fourth debut. "There's no one here to impress yet, you know."

Renjun pokes back, just as vicious, finger catching on muscle that wasn't there last year. "Just because you plan on learning the entire thing in the hour before we get on stage doesn't mean the rest of us aren't taking this seriously." They're not as close anymore, sure, let the distance that began during 127's first world tour widen into something purposeful, but Renjun still knows how to do this. The easy back and forth between them was always equal amounts bared teeth and barely suppressed laughter.

"Careful there, you're beginning to sound like Mark." 

Renjun wills his face still but can't help the way he stiffens. That one was all canine and incisor, Donghyuck pressing on a bruise still tender. He's always been easy to read, open with his emotions. He's only recently come to resent that.

He's doing his best to swallow down something equally nasty that wants to surface, something that'll slip between Donghyuck's façade to the places he's still soft and tender and hopelessly optimistic when someone steps between them. Mark.

"Donghyuck, behave." 

Donghyuck rolls his eyes and Renjun flushes pale pink and Mark politely pretends not to see either of them do that and then the trainers are yelling and all the bodies in the studio are scurrying into practiced formation.

Pivot, deep breath, lift his leg.

It's insult on top of injury, really, that he's stuck here because of his success. Wayv splintered off, taking all their members with them, but the group was still connected to SM through a miracle of bureaucracy and political manoeuvring that Renjun had no interest in understanding.

And Renjun didn't really think about it at first, except to hope that he wouldn't be exiled before he could make a mark for himself in South Korea. It had become clear that NCT was on the brink of _something_ , different subunits making waves on different continents the way the company CEO always claimed they would and Renjun had started to put his quiet doubt on the truth of that claim to rest.

He spent a year relaying between different projects, a promotion with U that finally managed to break the charts in a meaningful way, a stint with Donghyuck and Jeno and Jaemin that played up the chemistry between the four of them, solo schedules that cemented him as a pillar of the rocketing NCT group. Renjun had always been one of the most popular members in China, but now he was appearing on the same lists as his childhood role models. Now he was the only popular member NCT had left in China.

They couldn't let him go to Wayv and lose that. Skipped over for him for Europe too, and Renjun didn't fault them the chance to debut the rookies he'd helped train. It wasn't until he wasn't tapped for the second American subunit that Renjun remembered that companies don't give a damn about his personal career when net profit was still good.

So they shelved him. They kept the radio show so the fan unions couldn't fuss too much over solo activities, and brought him out to magazine spreads a couple of times at the magazines' requests-- his fans bought copies in the tens of thousands and presented him with statements whenever he bothered to check the fancafe.

And net profit was still good. Even the units that couldn't get on Melon Top 100 were passing goals in their target demographic and they started to measure success in ticket sales instead of music show wins.

Renjun watched with bleary eyes from the dorm room in Seoul as Donghyuck crowed his way through acceptance speeches in LA, Mark right behind him cradling their award haul, members who had debuted four years after Renjun blinking back tears as the audience roared their approval.

Net profit was still good, and Renjun tried not to take each success he wasn't a part of as proof that he was nonessential.

The same shitty studio, nothing at all like what SM built for them in Seoul, but the only thing they could find in New York big enough for them all to move in. It seemed cavernous now, lights stuck at an ambient glow that hardly seemed conducive to dancing.

This was a Dream reunion, or as close to it as they could get after Chenle was sent to Wayv and they learned just how strict they would be about the contact ban.

After Jaemin's back forced him out of dancing permanently. He's hardly struggling, starring in dramas with big names, probably making more than Jeno, definitely making more than Renjun, but still. Renjun misses his careful observation, the way that Jaemin could spot the emotions Renjun was struggling with before they became obvious on his face and distract them all accordingly.

He would've been a better leader than Mark, better at passing his lectures off as jokes, less obvious about the power he held over them. Would have. 

He's startled by Donghyuck, boisterous as though the late hour is nothing as he swipes Jisung's phone.

Mark right now looks nothing like the seventeen year old he was at their debut, wears the weight of it a little easier now. He's got Donghyuck by the hood of his sweater while he cackles and Renjun feels like his thoughts are maybe a little unfair.

He had hated the power they gave to Mark and the way he always had the upper hand, but it wasn't like Mark asked to have it.

Donghyuck and Jisung are still trying to fight over his phone, giddy in the way they used to get after practicing too long, and suddenly Renjun can't stand the way these things are the same when nothing else is.

"If you two aren't going to actually practice you should leave." Renjun doesn't mean for his tone to be that biting but their voices are echoing off the empty corners of the studio while he tries to use the mirror space to work on his stage presence, something neither of them have ever had to worry about, and Renjun has always been one for not realizing the force behind his blows until he's thrown them.

The two trail off into guilty silence and Mark lets go of Donghyuck's hood to grab the phone and hand it back into Jisung instead. He gives Renjun a calculating look and Renjun is ready for the gentle admonishment he's sure is coming when Mark surprises him.

"Renjun is right. Jisung should probably sleep," Mark pinches the bridge of his nose and says the next bit like it pains him. "And Donghyuck, you nailed this choreo ages ago."

There's one beat of silence in which Renjun has time to feel mildly resentful about how Mark was able to take his outburst and turn it into seemingly reasonable advice, two, and then Jisung starts insisting that he's "an adult now, I don't need a bedtime" and Donghyuck looks like he's working up to a particularly obnoxious reaction to the praise and Mark, infuriatingly capable as always with dealing with their antics, shoves the two of them out of the studio.

The lock clicks shut as Mark leans against the door, sighing, and ignores the yelling and the thud of what was probably Donghyuck throwing his water bottle at the door.

Renjun raises an eyebrow when Mark finally looks at him.

Mark shrugs, says, "You had a point."

Him snapping had been uncalled for and he knew it. He raises his eyebrow higher.

The noise outside dies down and Mark grabs his gatorade and takes a swig.

"I really didn't."

"Yeah, I know. I just couldn't spend anymore time with Donghyuck." Mark's voice is wry.

Renjun shivers. He's not sure why Mark is being much more candid than usual. Or maybe this is just one of many changes he's missed from the stasis of Seoul.

Mark makes an abortive apologetic gesture, like he knows he just did an asshole thing under the guise of being the responsible one, but he's not actually sorry, and he knows Renjun is going to let him get away with it.

Renjun lets him get away with it.

The next night— the last night before their performance Renjun's nerves remind him, starts off the same, but Jisung ducks out around 10pm ("To meet his secret girlfriend who he won't stop texting," Donghyuck is gleeful about exposing) and half an hour later Mark and Donghyuck have one of their wordless arguments where they seem to communicate solely through Mark's exaggerated eyebrows and Donghyuck making increasingly vulgar gestures. 

After a particularly filthy one Donghyuck winks at Renjun and saunters off, so Renjun guesses Mark wins.

"What was that about?" Renjun knows that asking questions to Mark or Donghyuck about their markdonghyuckisms is useless but he can't help the creeping suspicion that he's being set up. 

Mark waves it off, "Just his usual shit, you know?"

Renjun tries not to sulk like a little kid left out of the joke and chides himself for his pathetic jealousy and almost sends himself spiralling into another pity party when Mark speaks up again.

"I actually wanted to talk to you,"

Renjun takes in the way Mark is determined to not meet his eye, an impressive feat in a room covered in mirrors, and frowns. What is there to talk about? They already did the catching up thing when Renjun landed in LA, Mark filling him in on everything he's missed that he hadn't been able to piece together from Mark's instagram and sporadic texts.

"Just D-, Or, I was just," Mark trails off and looks at Renjun like he's waiting for something. Renjun looks back, unsure of what Mark wants from him. "I just," he kicks a stray shoe halfway across the room.

"Mark."

"I just needed your help with the bridge section."

Mark finally meets his eyes and Renjun is absolutely sure that this wasn't what he was originally going to say but Mark already looks like he's committed to what he just blurted out.

And Mark doesn't really need his help— but he's asking for it.

And Renjun could help, but Mark doesn't really need his help. And Renjun doesn't need _Mark_ to feel useful.

Renjun stays silent for a moment in hope of sweating him out but Mark has always been able to match him in stubbornness and Renjun has yet to beat him in a staring contest.

"You know that we have different choreo for the bridge?"

Mark's ears are red and Renjun is surreptitiously studying him and baffled by what is making Mark act like this. Even when they promoted together Mark rarely handled him with kid gloves the way he would with Jeno or Jisung.

"Yeah but," Mark swallows and Renjun watches the bob of his throat. "But you know every part better than the trainers here anyways." His hand is on Renjun's shoulder now where he's leaning against the barre, something in his tone lending undue weight to the sentence. Not imploring, not commanding, just confident that Renjun is going to say yes.

Renjun bristles and shrugs off the arm. "So what. You're saying I had nothing better to do these past months but learn all your parts?" (He didn't.) "You think I spend my time making sure I can be helpful to Mark Lee, NCT's ace?"

Mark winces.

He doesn't need the way that Mark never quite managed to shift from leader to friend, doesn't need anything that could be mistaken for pity, doesn't need something else to twist himself into knots over; to carefully examine the weave and stitch of each openhanded gesture to see what he'll have to give up in return.

Some part of Renjun is aware of the way he's overcompensating for his own insecurity, but the larger part is wrestling with the acrid shame of actually comparing his past year to Mark's, to the fact that he had learned all of the other parts in case one of the members coming in fresh off promotions needed someone to go over it. It had seemed like something he should do as one of the longest active members and now it just makes him feel washed up.

"Renjun, you know I don't—" Mark bites his own words back.

"You don't _what?_ " Renjun is trembling a little bit

Mark puts his hand back on his shoulder. Renjun is trembling a lot, some unholy combination of adrenaline and sleep deprivation and _Will he? Is he going to? Does he want to?_

Mark moves even further into his space. "Donghyuck said something to me," he starts, and his hand slips to the nape of Renjun's neck. It feels heavier than it has any right to be, grounding Renjun to his spot, to this moment.

"Sounds like his usual shit to me." He means the comment to be mocking Mark's brushoff from earlier but the attempt at casual is ruined by the tension he's holding in every limb.

He can't stop staring at Mark's mouth.

Mark is spouting whatever bullshit Donghyuck fed him probably but Renjun doesn't process what he's saying because he's staring at his mouth and he's not sure whether he can blame the goosebumps on the trembling and Mark's hand is still there, downward pressure, surprisingly wide with how much he can encircle and Renjun wonders if his neck was always this fragile, the column of his spine so breakable and then Renjun is thinking of what two hands would feel like around it.

Mark takes his hand off and Renjun blinks up at Mark. Shakes off whatever trance he was in and before he can even think of responding to everything he just didn't listen to, Mark is slamming into him. Hands on either side of Renjun, caging him against the barre. He's going to have a bruise across the small of his back, Renjun thinks absently.

Mark bites into his mouth, teeth and tongue and too fast to be anything but painful. He tastes like the blood welling up on Renjun's split lower lip.

That's what spurs Renjun into action. He uses the barre to buck his hips with enough force to get Mark off of him, hands digging into Mark's forearms. Mark goes, but he takes Renjun with him.

He forgets sometimes, how easily Mark used to manage dealing with him too. He seems like such a pushover in all the new interviews Renjun would watch, subtitles on and mouthing along to the unfamiliar words, that he forgot Mark can give as good as he gets. 

And maybe he lied. Maybe he didn't hate the power Mark always held over him. Maybe he just hated the way he reacted to it.

Mark is broader than he ever was while they promoted together and Renjun is mostly the same. Not that Renjun ever won a wrestling match back then either, unless he cheated and got the jump on him. More importantly, Renjun isn't expecting it when Mark throws him to the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

Renjun tries to get air back into his lungs and Mark is tracing patterns on his throat, disconcertingly gentle after how he got him down here. 

_Oh_ , Renjun thinks. Tries not to think about how easy it would be for Mark to do exactly what he'd been thinking about earlier, two hands spanning the circumference of his neck. 

"Oh," Renjun says.

Mark rises on his arms to look at him and Renjun can't look him in the eye. Can only tip his chin back the slightest bit, a barely-there movement and then Mark's mouth ghosts the same path his fingers took. He feels his teeth against the unsteady pulse of his jugular. _The makeup coordis are going to kill me_ , Renjun thinks near hysterically.

This time when Mark kisses him he moves slower, less to prove now that he has Renjun solidly beneath him. Not gentle though, his tongue worrying where Renjun is still bleeding and swallowing the sigh it provokes in Renjun.

The kiss is greedy, and Renjun is burning and harder in his sweats than he should be. Mark grinds against him and he's hard too, and that makes it both better and worse.

Worse because they can't be doing this, not here and not now and not ever. 

Better because this, though. _This_ , Renjun needs.

"Stop moving" Mark says against his lips. Renjun immediately arches up into Mark, only partly to be contrary. Mostly because if he doesn't get some pressure against his dick he really might die.

Mark sits back on his thighs, pinning Renjun to the ground. He can't help the sound he makes when Mark stops kissing him. The desperation in it is enough to make the flush on his face darken further, and the obvious way he's tenting his sweats for Mark to see isn't helping either.

Mark doesn't look.

He's rising onto his knees over Renjun, squeezing his waist as a warning to stay, and slipping his pants and briefs halfway down his thighs.

Renjun is struck with the absurd thought that he should look away. Years of averting his eyes made muscle memory, he shuts his eyes until Mark says his name.

Mark sits down again, his weight heavy on his chest, and he's stroking his dick right in front of Renjun's face. _Oh fuck._ Renjun closes his eyes again and thunks his head against the floor.

He's big, bigger than Renjun and there was precome beading at the tip and Renjun wants to taste it with an intensity that he didn't know he had in him.

Mark knows though. Presses his thumb against his lower lip until he can fit it into his mouth, petting at the velvet wetness of his tongue. His finger tastes like nothing, slightly salty in the way skin is.

"You like this?" 

The question shocks him into reality and he bites down on the finger in his mouth. It's not like he's planning on ever telling someone but something in him insists on a token resistance. He's aware that his logic is circular but Renjun isn't _allowed_ to want this. 

Mark hisses and slaps him in the face. Open handed, hard enough for the smack to echo across the room. The noise Renjun makes is barely human.

"All you have to do is what I tell you, Renjun-ah." Mark's tone is consoling but his hands are anything but. His grip on his chin is tight, forcing Renjun to finally make eye contact. "Just what I tell you."

Renjun's voice is pained. "Mark,"

"Don't make it this hard on yourself."

And it's Mark saying it so maybe Renjun can allow himself this.

Mark shuffles forward, fully straddling his chest. Renjun lets himself look for real this time.

He's done this before, but just barely. Rushed in a bar bathroom, not caring what the other guy looked like as long as he was just as unrecognizable in poor lighting. This is different.

Mark pushes the head past his lips and stills.

"Suck, Renjun."

The precome tastes like almost nothing. Renjun can do this, because Mark is telling him too.

He pushes further into Renjun's mouth and it's already a lot. He's going so slowly and Renjun's mouth is stretched so wide that he can feel spit pooling at the corners of his mouth. He hits the back of his throat and Mark wraps his own hand around the part that doesn't fit. Renjun is focusing on breathing through his nose because if he doesn't he'll probably come in his pants like the stupid teenager he always reverts into around Mark.

"Just like that," Mark murmurs as he rubs his thumb over his stretched lips, proprietarily.

His hips cant back and Renjun has drool all over his face and doesn't even manage a full exhale before Mark pushes back in. There's nothing dignified about this, but it's better this way. He just has to do what Mark tells him to do and Mark does all the work.

He adjusts to the slow rhythm of Mark fucking his mouth and tries not to hear the praise Mark is mumbling because when he catches him telling Renjun how good he looks with his mouth full like this, Renjun can't help the way he whines around Mark in his mouth.

"Jesus, Renjun." He doesn't think he's ever seen Mark this careless, this undone, before.

He didn't expect Mark to talk as much as he does, whenever he let himself imagine in the past. But he keeps up a steady stream of comments, most so filthy all Renjun can do is savour the ache in his jaw as Mark fucks his mouth deeper on each stroke. 

The closer Mark gets, the more Renjun becomes unable to ignore the slight friction of his boxers against himself, a dark stain visible through his grey sweats. He's both grateful that Mark is ignoring every part of him but his mouth and desperate for attention. Even if he could move his arms, Renjun wouldn't touch himself.

When Mark starts to push into his throat Renjun forgets about that and forgets about breathing through his nose and everything narrows to the way he can swallow around Mark. His vision is crackling around the edges but Renjun doesn't mind too much. All he has to do is what Mark tells him to do and Mark is telling him how good he's doing. 

When he comes it's almost a surprise, almost anti-climatic. Renjun knows this isn't about him, but the pleasure still bows his back off the ground, only the comforting weight of Mark across his shoulders keeping him there.

When Mark comes his hips jerk forward so much he bottoms out in Renjun's mouth, coming straight down his throat.

Renjun would have swallowed anyways.

He rolls off Renjun, who is finally too fucked out to consider fighting the way half of his brain is still insisting he must. His mouth is sore in a way it's never been before and when he says "Mark," a question, his voice is ruined.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> both parties are willing participants in this fic although explicit verbal consent is never given on screen. mark uses strength to subdue renjun before/during sex but while renjun physically struggles, he admits to himself that he just feels the need to posture & requires some semblance of force so that he can allow himself to enjoy something that he feels he is not allowed to. the crux of the relationship in this fic is that they have known each other for over a decade and have had the time to learn how to trust each other with their limits. just overall not a good or realistic example to follow!
> 
> sorry that this ended up being emotional constipation with porn instead of porn with feelings but i blame this entirely on mark and renjun.


End file.
